DISCLAIMER: DON'T READ THIS POST [..just excerpts so I don't piss-off a lot of people on a Sun-Day; also, just the lyrics ...no commentary. Don't read it, otherwise, look in the mirror.]

Fire On The Mountain

Lyrics: Robert HunterMusic: Mickey Hart

Almost ablaze, still you don't feel the heat
It takes all you got just to stay on the beat
You say it's a living, we all gotta eat
But you're here alone, there's no one to compete
If mercy's in business, I wish it for you
More than just ashes when your dreams come true....

Baby's in scarlet, her shackles in gray
If loves to love she's got it salted away
Out of the rat trap and under the wire
Out of the frying pan and into the fire
Put it down heavy, strip it down lean
Got to lay it down dirty and play it back clean

You gave all you had, why you want to give more?
The more that you give, the more it will take
[@Ice Nine Publishing, 1968 - 1995, and Robert Hunter, 1967 - 2008]

The following note is courtesy of our buddie, Alex Allan, at
"Grateful Dead Lyric And Song Finder"http://www3.clearlight.com/~acsa/intro.htm [@Alex Allan, 1995 - 2008; great guy]
Robert Hunter says this in "Box Of Rain" about writing this song: Written at Mickey Hart's ranch in heated inspiration as the surrounding hills blazed and the fire approached the recording studio where we were working; verses three and four don't appear on the Grateful Dead recording of this song, but lines five and six of verse three became one of our mottoes, along with "Record More than You Erase."
[@Robert Hunter, A Box of Rain: Lyrics 1965 - 1993 Expanded edition; Author: Robert Hunter
Expanded version publication date: 1993 (Penguin USA)
Cover illustration by Maureen HunterThe expanded edition of Box Of Rain collects Hunter's song lyrics, for the Grateful Dead and others, up to 1993. It includes brief annotations to some songs and a discography. Lyrics for songs written in the early 1990's (such as "Days Between" and "Lazy River Road") that were not included in the 1990 edition are included here. This edition also includes a new preface by Robert Hunter.]

'Fireman, fireman, call off your dog
This isn't a blaze, it's just a hog in the log
Cut up in sections, squirming alive
Lost to the world on that fifty-cent jive
There's a fire on the mountain, running around
What doesn't go up can never come down

Wound in barbed wire, hell I ain't sore
Only hurts when I laugh, or roll on the floor
Only hurts a little, at least that's what I'm told
When you drown in hot oil it can even feel cold
I know I'm in love but I can't tell you why
It feels like poison, shoot me down when I cry'

Ashes
I was thinking about the Hunter lyrics for the two songs you put up for our delectation, 'with no attempts to shovel the glimpse into the ditch of what each one means'. But in my opinion, Fire on the Mountain has some of the most uncomfortable images Hunter has ever conjured up. Reminds me of stuff like dancing on the titanic, the court of Louis XVI, a musician with arthritis, an artist with blindness, a writer with writer's block.

This is from the unpublished letters of Hermann Hesse:
'Life is meaningless, cruel, stupid, and nevertheless magnificent - it does not make fun of man (for that requires intelligence), but concerns itself with man no more than with the earthworm. To suppose that man in particular is a whim and cruel game of nature is a fallacy that man himself has thought up because he takes himself too seriously. First of all, we must recognize that we men have no harder time of it than birds or ants, that actually our life is easier and more beautiful. We must take the cruelty of life and the inexorability of death into ouselves, not by moaning but by experiencing our despair to the full. Only then, only when we have taken all the cruelty or meaninglessness of nature into ourselves, can we begin to confront this brutal meaninglessness and to force a meaning on it. That is the highest achievement man is capable of, and it is all he is capable of. Everything else is done better by animals.
Most men do not suffer from meaninglessness, any more than the earthworm does. But precisely the few who do suffer and look for meaning are the meaning of mankind'.

I'm waiting for Bill to make fotm his sotm.
(hope you got my e-mail)

p.s. Thank you so much for re-minding us of the Berkeley show, Ashes. I had a smile like the cheshire cat from Bobby's intro to the last note and beyond. Wonderful stuff, love everything, Dupree's rocks

Jerrob Hungar:
Wow! I had never seen that Hesse unplublished quote... I like the fact that he sought a path of solitude, however I'd like to believe I am much more optimistic than him. I've got a lot of faith in the power of one's Mind to change not only one's experience of Life, but to help change other's who may be struggling with their experience of Life in this world.
Thank You for the email - I was composing one of my typical wise-ass responses, however though my spirit is willing, my body is ill nowadays so the response remains as a "Draft" never to be sent. Here: that post was the exact opposite from how it was perceived... my fault, I know, however I use this space to write non-sense when I get "writer's block" for the stuff that I am really working on here at "No-Man's-Land Motel." ..I never even considered that it could be interpreted in the manner stated in your email. ..sorry about that....
This will be my last post for a while, however all is well. I hope you and the family are doing well.

--- AshesRising

JH: ..for whatever it is not worth: one of my only in-depth conversations with "JG" was about "The Glass Bead Game" ("Magister Ludi"). Needless to state the obvious.... he really enjoyed that final Hesse novel. More info here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~hipbone/IDTWeb/Hesse.html